


Life Stories

by eviltwinjen



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Intern Paolo, Librarians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eviltwinjen/pseuds/eviltwinjen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the summer reading program ends and Carlos watches the wild-eyed kids troop out of the library's rematerialized front door, he becomes determined to see for himself. Just like at the bowling alley, his scientific curiosity won't let him leave it alone. This time, though, he's not underestimating the potential danger. He brings bear spray, which everyone seems to agree is the best defense against angry librarians. </p><p>(A little self-indulgent librarian fic, because I just listened to Episode 28, "Summer Reading Program")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Stories

Carlos has always loved libraries. His mom took him to their local branch whenever she could. Later, he used its dusty corners as a refuge. There was a particular spot in the stacks near the 530’s that was cool and dim, and nobody bothered him there. The librarian, Mrs. Johnson, was one of the few adults Carlos met growing up who never acted like a little brown-skinned boy checking out A Brief History of Time was a curiosity. 

So Carlos has a hard time understanding why everyone in Night Vale fears librarians. He's become accustomed to the unexpected dangers lurking in everyday Night Vale activities, to a degree, but the way Cecil talks about them…he knows Cecil loves to read. After the post office reopened and started delivering mail again (or at least, mail started appearing, accompanied by a smell of sulphur and a nebulous feeling of unease), Cecil was on Amazon at all hours of the day. There was always at least one book in Cecil's packages, discreetly sandwiched between pieces of garden equipment and new dress shirts so as not to attract too much attention from the Sheriff's Secret Police. 

Carlos asked him about it once while they were getting ready for bed. "Why don't you ever go to the library? It can't be that bad." He was shifting stacks of books off the dresser to clear a little space for his phone and watch (it had been his dad's, so he kept wearing it despite Night Vale's effect on timepieces). Cecil froze, one hand gripping a clothes hanger. "The library?" 

"Yeah, you know--where you can get books for free? Without ending up with three garden hoses?"

Cecil never answered, and Carlos got distracted watching him unbutton his shirt.

 

 

After the summer reading program ends and Carlos watches the wild-eyed kids troop out of the library's rematerialized front door, he becomes determined to see for himself. Just like at the bowling alley, his scientific curiosity won't let him leave it alone. This time, though, he's not underestimating the potential danger. He brings bear spray, which everyone seems to agree is the best defense against angry librarians. 

It's a weekday morning, and the library is quiet. It looks ordinary--1970's era furnishings littered with balled up scrap paper and golf pencils, homemade signs fading in the light from the windows. Even the smell takes Carlos back to his old neighborhood. He almost expects to see Mrs. Johnson at the Reference desk, with her cup of perfectly sharpened pencils and that little wooden bear figurine that had fascinated him as a child. 

"Carlos, right? Cecil's Carlos?"

He jumps. There's a woman standing next to him--short, dark hair, decisive chin. She holds out a hand for him to shake.

"I'm Sandra. Need any help?"

She's young, younger than him, but she looks like she knows the secrets of the universe. Carlos is reminded of Mrs. Johnson again. "I was curious about the library. This is my first time." 

He half-expects her to say "I know", but instead she just smiles. "Well, welcome! Anything in particular you're looking for?" 

 

  

"After school starts there's a bit of a lull, thank God. At least until school projects come due." Sandra Eslao, Adult and Teen Services Librarian, hands Carlos a cup of coffee from the staff lounge's k-cup machine. She agrees to be interviewed "for Science", but only if there's caffeine involved. There's a large bowl of berries on the table, some of them a bit smushed. "This is only my second year here, and of course we didn't do the summer reading program last year." Carlos can't reconcile this woman, cute-but-sensible heels clicking on the linoleum, with the image of Tamika Flynn holding a librarian's severed head. 

"Why did you decide to do it? The summer reading program, I mean. It seems--" extreme? Barbaric? "--like quite an undertaking." Lord, he sounds like Cecil. 

“This is Night Vale. What else are the kids going to do in their free time? Join the Boy Scouts and have some fucking hypocrite tell them getting encased in glass is an honor? We give them a challenge they can overcome--a battle they can fight and win--without putting them in any real danger. Or at least, no more danger than they face every day of their lives here. The worst that happens is they get a little malnourished. They all return safe and sound, which is more than you can say for the scouts.” 

“What about Cecil’s intern? He never came back, did he?”

“Paolo? He was wasted at the station. I mean, the archives are a worthwhile project but Paolo has so much potential. We decided to offer him the bite.”

“You what?”

“Believe me, librarians have a much longer life expectancy than Cecil’s interns.” 

"What kind of…bite?"

Sandra sets down her mug and gets up slowly. She takes off her cardigan. There's a low rumble, a sound of trees creaking in a high wind, and then Carlos is staring up into the face of a bear. A giant, brown bear wearing a khaki skirt and silk shell. He blinks, and Sandra is slipping her (human) arms back into her sweater. "I hate it when the sleeves get stretched out. I'm so short, they always come down to my knuckles as it is." 

"You're a were-- a were-bear?" Carlos is having trouble forming the words.

"I prefer the term 'shapeshifter', but yes, essentially. All librarians are. Well, not all of them can manifest fully. Night Vale…has an effect on people." 

"And the reports of maulings…"

"Ugh, it's such a stereotype. You wouldn't believe how often people say things like, 'Do you really need a master’s degree to terrorize children?' I mean, sure, you can learn a lot on the job, but there's so much more to library work than scaring people into dropping their cell phones." She glances at his hands, white-knuckled on the arms of his chair. "Look. You've been here long enough to see how the City Council feels about books and reading. A little fear is something we have to cultivate to keep them from shutting us down. And they're right to be afraid." Her grin sharpens. "What could be more dangerous in Night Vale than a place that connects people with the outside world? That shows kids there are other possibilities? A place full of knowledge that can't be mysteriously erased? Where you can ask questions without being hauled away for 're-education'?" She's pacing now. Carlos pictures her rearing up, claws unsheathed, to defend her young. He thinks of Mrs. Johnson, her voice cool and even, telling a police officer that if she needed his help handling the teenagers hanging around in the library she'd ask for it. Perhaps he'd like to ask the retirees playing Bridge in the reading room why they weren't studying? 

 

 

Carlos is now a library regular, although he hasn't quite convinced Cecil it's safe. Cecil does send him in with a box of blackberries for Sandra from his plot in the community garden. Thanks to Amazon, it's the best-accessorized couple of square feet in the place. 

Sandra laughs and tells Carlos Cecil shouldn't worry as long as he abides by library policies. "The other day I did have to chase a guy out for jerking off in a study carrel. He was looking at a leaf identification guide. I mean, if you've got a hard-on for trees the Whispering Forest is right there." 

Sandra's outspoken nature has caused some tension between library employees and the Board of Directors. "Is this about the Biography section again?" Carlos pops a blackberry into his mouth and hopes no one notices. It's dangerous, and against library policies, to eat around librarians outside of the staff lounge. 

"Don't even get me started. All I'm trying to do is get rid of a few extra copies of _Helen Hunt: a Desperate Life_. You'd think thirty would be plenty. One of the board members wrote a fricking protest [song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP1q5lo1cTo) and he's been singing it into my voice mail. He rhymes 'Helen Hunt' with 'burning want.' It's super creepy." 

"It's an off-rhyme, I guess."

Sandra glares at him and snatches the blackberry box out of his hands. "If you want to help, you could ask Cecil to say something about it on the air. Better yet, you should come to a board meeting. Maybe you can help me not kill Marcus. Bring Cecil. They meet in the bloodstone circle, so he doesn't actually have to come into the building."

"I'll see what I can do." Carlos leaves with his tote bag a little fuller than usual: there's a new David Attenborough DVD, his copy of Sotomayor's memoir has finally come in (thanks to Sandra's efforts), and, just for old times' sake, _A Brief History of Time_. Not that he doesn't have his own copy at home, but there's something about the smell of the one from the library. It reminds him of cool, dusty stacks, of Mrs. Johnson's perfume, and just a little bit of the wind carrying the scent of an animal through the forest. 

 


End file.
